News & Events

November 29, 2017As Christine Negus BFA'08, remarks,“I like the idea of the persistence of teeth. In true crime shows, for instance, a body is often found, and eventually identified through the dental records. There’s some kind of permanence to these tiny things that require so much care, that need flossing and cleaning every day. But ultimately, they are the last thing standing."

November 30, 2017The Returners: Seven Conversations. Join us Thursday, November 30, from 7:00pm-9pm for the 7th exciting presentation in the series, with Special Guests Soheila Esfahani, Artist and Educator (MFA, Western) and Rah, Artist (MFA Candidate, Western) Soheila Esfahani and Rah will speak on their respective practices, and converse on “Translating Voices”

December 5, 2017The Photography and Social Change conference showcases the research of undergraduate and Master’s art history students who have spent the term exploring how photography has figured in modern conflict, social movements, and political upheavals of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

November 28, 2017Dr. Sheila M. Macfie and Dr. Danielle Way, Department of Biology, whose research focuses on plant responses to global change will present their work at the Artlab Gallery. After the talk an organized tour of Western's Biotron will take place.

November 16, 2017Art Now! Speakers' Series, The Returners: Seven Conversations. Join us for the 6th exciting presentation in the series With Special Guest Robert Fones. Thursday, November 16, from 7:30pm-9pm at the Museum London Lecture Theatre 421 Ridout Street North. Robert Fones began exhibiting in London, Ontario, in 1969, and has shown his work since then at Carmen Lamanna Gallery, S.L. Simpson Gallery and other commercial, parallel and public galleries within Canada.

November 9, 2017Art Now! Speakers' Series, The Returners: Seven Conversations. Join us for the 5th exciting presentation in the series.
Graduate MA holder, Jenifer Papararo, and MFA holder, Kim Simon, will present their work and will speak on their respective practices.

November 3, 2017The Dangerous Telescope: Films by Ian Hugo
Nov. 3, 2017, 7pm
Hosted by the Artlab Gallery, presented in partnership with
LOMAA (London Ontario Media Arts Association)
Talk and Screening with Stephen Broomer,
Filmmaker, film preservationist and independent scholar
The Dangerous Telescope: Films by Ian Hugo
Ian Hugo’s films, made between 1948 and 1979, betray a fascination with the mystic and exotic, the flow of energy, and like a distorting mirror, they give a vision of a world in flux. From his psychodramas, inspired in part by the writings of his wife, Anais Nin (Bells of Atlantis, Melodic Inversion), to his documentaries (Ay-Yi, Tropical Noah’s Ark), to his experiments with pure abstraction (Aphrodisiac I & II), Hugo’s films are an invitation to the most puzzling and difficult strains of American underground cinema. This program will be introduced by filmmaker and scholar Stephen Broomer, who is presently completing a manuscript on the films of Ian Hugo.

October 26, 2017Jean-Paul Kelly, Artist (BFA, Western; MVS, University of Toronto and Sobey Award Nominee) and Kelly Jazvac, Artist, Visual Arts Professor (BA, Guelph; MFA, U. Victoria and Sobey Award Nominee) will each speak on their respective practices, and converse on “Art and the Ecology of Found Things.”

In conjunction with Govrin's Artlab Gallery exhibition we will be hosting an exhibit of new photography by Undergraduate student, Derek Boswell in the Cohen Commons area. Boswell is in his third year of study and came to Visual Arts Western from Bealart.

October 18, 2017Please join us October 18, from 2:30-4:30, for the opening of >100,000,000, curated by PhD Candidate Stephanie Anderson. The Bookcase Micromuseum and Lending Library is located in Office 221 of the JLVAC. The Bookcase is typically open Mondays 11:30-2:30, by chance, or by appointment.

October 5, 2017This exhibition will feature the work of second year MFA candidates; Claire Bartleman, Tyler Durbano, Sharmistha Kar, Graham Macaulay, Matt Trueman, Rah and Joy Wong who will showcase their sleight of hand; that is, the magic of artists creating something from nothing.

September 5, 2017This fall the Department of Visual Arts, Western University celebrates its 50th anniversary. In conjunction with this momentous event the Artlab Gallery is pleased to present Past Forward, an alumni exhibition that includes over 300 images and texts submitted by former students from our studio and art history programs.

August 28, 2017Congratulations to our newly-minted MAs who were in attendance at a reception to celebrate their latest success on August 28th. From left to right, Shelley Kopp, Kelsey Perreault, Mackenzie Sinclair, Caroline Rabideau, Christina Dreise. (absent Kylie Kelly, Beatriz Asfora). We wish you all the best success.

August 10, 2017Quinn Smallboy’s work explores symbolic images that refer to Indigenous cultures. Through shapes and forms, that make up the iconic symbols that surround (and are within) Indigenous cultures, he approaches art-making by setting up alternate interpretations. By utilizing the mediums of painting and sculpture he translates Indigenous symbols into works of art.

August 10, 2017Midheaven names the tenth house in the natal astrological system. Evoking images of eclipse within in-between realms, it is a point of definition in one’s chart which determines vocation and purpose. Midheaven asks: of what significance is the continuity between contemporary artistic practice and paranormal occurrence?

July 6, 2017Rehab Nazzal: Choreographies of Resistance
Thesis Exhibition July 6 to July 29, 2017
Opening Reception: July 8
McIntosh Gallery at Western University is pleased to present a PhD. thesis exhibition by activist artist Rehab Nazzal. The show is based on Nazzal’s year-long field research in the occupied West Bank and features an array of works that engage gallery-goers through sight, hearing and smell.

June 2, 2017The Artlab Gallery is pleased to present The Black and White Exhibition. Back for the third consecutive year this collaborative event features artwork from over seventy students from five different schools.

May 3, 2017The Artlab Gallery is pleased to present the MFA thesis exhibition, Greater than Lesser than Equal to by Charles Lee Franklin Harris. The studio-based research of Charles Harris involves the use of non-traditional woodblock print-structures to explore the borderland where art and design commingle and cross-pollinate.

April 17, 2017The Artlab Gallery is pleased to present the MFA thesis exhibition, Gardening at Arm's Length by Paul Chartrand. Chartrand’s solo exhibit includes a variety of work based on his research into hydroponic growing systems, and the mediated relationship humans have with the environment.

April 20, 2017Art and the City is organized by Jessica Cappuccitti as part of the adapted project-based stream of her Ph.D. in Art and Visual Culture at Western University. Her current research considers the City of Detroit as a case study for analyzing the complex role that artists and art institutions are playing in the potential re-growth and revitalization of the city. Art and the City will focus on public engagement, outreach programs, and community development strategies in the arts. Some questions to be considered by the panel participants include: what specifically are the arts doing for your communities, and how can art and its institutions instigate concrete positive changes in communities, or potentially even foster the rebuilding of communities?

May 12, 2017In collaboration with the Department of Visual Arts, Western University, SATELLiTE Project Space is proud to present Sarah Munro’s MFA thesis exhibition, The Longest Way Round, is the Shortest Way Home. On display from May 12-20th 2017, this exhibition of new work demonstrates Munro’s unique interdisciplinary approach to art making that includes collage, sculpture and installation.

May 6, 2017Jason Stovall, MFA '16, is the 2017 Plaskett Award Winner. This award is used to support a mature Canadian with travel and the time and facilities to create work in Europe for one year. Awards: The artists will receive their awards at the 2017 RCA President’s Party held at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto on Saturday May 6, 2017in Toronto. The event has been organized by Lina Jabra, Executive Director at the RCA. For tickets contact lina.jabra@rca-arc.ca

March 21, 2017Are you looking to buy art? Then this is the event for you! VASA's annual Art Sale ROUND TWO is Tuesday, March 21st, 2017 in the John Labatt Visual Arts Centre!
Swing by the VAC from 9am-4pm to check out some sweet work by your very talented and hip visual art and art history students!

February 16, 2017Shelley Niro (MFA '97) explores the interaction between indigenous culture and postcolonial media in this continuation of the Art Now Speakers' Series. Join us at 7:00 PM on February 16 in NCB 113. Free and open to the public!

Professor Kathryn Brush (Visual Arts) has been awarded the 2017 Hellmuth Prize for Achievement in Research. The honour recognizes faculty members with outstanding international reputations for their contributions in research – one of the defining hallmarks of a university.